Gay Vancouver Restaurant Manager Refused Service to Man Wearing MAGA Hat

A gay restaurant manager in Vancouver BC Canada asked a patron to remove his red MAGA hat. The patron refused, and the manager told him that he would not serve him unless he took off the hat. The patron left the restaurant, and when the owners caught wind of it they immediately fired the manager.



Fired manager Darin Hodge said the issue erupted when he asked a customer to take off their MAGA hat. In an emailed statement, he said he would do it again.



“I stand by my decision to ask the patron to remove his hat. The MAGA hat has come to symbolize racism, bigotry, islamaphobia [sic], misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia. As a person with a strong moral backbone, I had to take a stand against this guest’s choice of headwear while in my former place of work,” he wrote.



Eva Gates, Vice president of Human Resources for the Sequoia Group of Restaurants — which owns the Teahouse — agreed with how the incident began, but said it amounted to a refusal of service.



“A gentleman came in wearing a hat that was a Make America Great Again hat, and our manager went up to the gentleman and asked him to take off his hat, that he wouldn’t serve him with that hat on,” she said.



“And the gentleman said that he had a right to wear that hat. And [the manager] refused to serve him if he wouldn’t take off his hat, and so the customer had to leave.”



In a previous statement, the company called the manager “a good person with a big heart and a right to his personal beliefs.” However, it said he was fired for violating the company’s “philosophy of tolerance.”



“Sequoia does not support intolerance of any kind, and it is because of these principles that we cannot discriminate against someone based on their support for the current administration in the United States or any other bona fide political party,” reads the statement.